


when the time comes (baby don’t run)

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode: s02e21-22 S.O.S. Parts 1-2, Post-Season/Series 02, Time Travel, Ward x Simmons Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 14:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4063324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson and May return from <em>The Iliad</em> with tears in their eyes and two sheet-covered bodies. Jemma knows she should offer forgiveness.</p><p>She can't.</p><p>[For the <b>Travel</b> theme at Ward x Simmons Summer.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	when the time comes (baby don’t run)

**Author's Note:**

> So, this monster of a fic has taken approximately a hundred years to finish. Which is kind of appropriate, considering the trope. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> This also, happily and coincidentally, fits the Ward x Simmons Summer week two theme **Travel**. So, yay!
> 
> Title from Parachute's _Kiss Me Slowly_. Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

Coulson and May return from _The Iliad_ with tears in their eyes and two sheet-covered bodies.

“I’m sorry,” Coulson tells her, over and over. “Jemma, I’m so sorry.”

May says nothing. She won’t even make eye contact.

Jemma knows she should offer forgiveness.

She can’t.

Skye is unrecognizable, a mummified corpse all that’s left after her mother sucked the life out of her. Jemma doesn’t know whether that’s better or worse than Fitz—Fitz, who looks so himself, who could so easily be sleeping, if not for the hole in his chest and back where the pipe went through him.

She sits between their bodies in the makeshift morgue and waits for the tears to come.

They never do.

It feels as though she’s been crying non-stop for months—since Trip, since HYDRA, since the last time she sat by Fitz’s side while he was still and pale. She spent nine days fearing he wouldn’t wake—nine days in which she refused to be moved, in which Skye was a constant presence. They sat together in an oversized chair, clinging to one another for dear life as they took turns grieving what they’d lost and waiting for Fitz to come back to them. And he did.

That time.

This time, there’s no uncertainty. Fitz won’t be waking up. And there’s no comfort to be found from Skye, because neither will she.

She’s lost her best friends.

But she doesn’t cry. There are no tears left in her, it seems. Instead, all she feels is a steely resolve.

She’s going to fix this.

\---

And she does.

\---

The possibility of time travel has ensnared the imaginations of scientists and civilians alike for centuries. Some of the brightest minds in science have dedicated their entire lives to discovering a way to make the concept a reality, and every single one of them has failed.

Jemma manages it in seven months.

\---

She goes back a little further than she means to, but it’s an imprecise science. The important thing is that both Fitz and Skye are still alive.

This time, she’s going to keep them that way. Whatever it takes.

\---

She’s nineteen again, stationed at the Treehouse. The first morning, when she wakes and Fitz is sleeping across the room—undoubtedly having fallen asleep in the middle of a brainstorming session, as so often happened in those (these?) days—she bursts into tears.

Fitz is, understandably, startled to wake to find her sobbing into her pillow, but he wastes no time in climbing into bed with her to offer comfort.

“Shove over,” he orders, prodding her along until there’s room for him. As soon as he’s settled, she clings to him, exchanging her pillow for his shoulder. He wraps his arms around her and doesn’t ask any questions, just holds on, and it’s—

He’s _alive_. He’s _alive_ and he’s holding her and there’s none of the uncertainty, none of the discomfort, that colored their interactions for months. (That _will_ color their interactions—except no, it won’t, because she’s going to prevent it. She’s going to prevent everything.) His body heat seeps into her, melting some of the ice that has surrounded her heart, and if she didn’t fear that he would take it the wrong way, she’d kiss him.

He’s _alive_.

“What’s this about?” he asks, quietly, as she cries harder. “Did something happen?”

“No,” she manages, hiding her face in his shoulder. He rubs her back, soothing and prompting both, and the resolve that carried her through the past seven months is strengthened. She won’t lose him again. She _won’t_. “No, it was—it was just a nightmare.”

It’s not a lie.

“Do you want to tell me?” he offers.

She shakes her head. “It wasn’t real.”

It wasn’t. It wasn’t and it won’t be.

This future won’t become a nightmare. She won’t let it.

\---

For all the planning she did in getting here, she’s not entirely sure what to do next. She lets the days carry her along: does her work, runs experiments whose results she already knows, writes up reports, and spends every waking moment with Fitz. She had a boyfriend, the last time she did this—a Communications agent named Jason, sweet and tall and funny—but she ends the relationship within two days of her return.

(He dies at the Triskelion, and every time she looks up into his gorgeous blue eyes, she thinks of warning him. But she can’t save everyone. And in the meantime, she’d much rather spend her time with Fitz.)

Though he never says anything, she thinks Fitz knows that something is wrong. In addition to how difficult she finds it to let him out of her sight, it’s hard to recapture the carefree enthusiasm she had in these days. Science is still beautiful, but she has two years of field experience and tragedy under her belt, and all she can see is the danger hiding behind every corner.

To say nothing of the fact that she’s already worked through every project and invention he proposes.

That’s not actually as bad as she might have expected, however. Rather than boredom, she feels a sense of nostalgia as she rediscovers what she already knows. Watching familiar formulas and equations bloom across their papers helps soothe a little of the ever-present pain in her heart.

And watching Fitz’s happiness at every accolade, every award, reaffirms her resolve. She won’t lose him again.

\---

Three months after her arrival, Jemma has a conversation that changes everything.

She and Fitz have recently been transferred to the Sandbox. Either one of them could have been stationed here ages ago, but they refused to be separated, and thus had to wait for a time when there were two openings at once. The time has finally arrived, and two days after their arrival, Jemma is ordered to report to the office of the lead agent, Richard Morris, first thing in the morning—sans Fitz.

She’s not concerned. She remembers this meeting: a friendly chat over breakfast about how she’s settling in and what she hopes to accomplish at the Sandbox. He’ll ask about her partnership with Fitz, whether it bothers her to be called FitzSimmons and if he should put a stop to it, and whether she’s satisfied with her work at SHIELD.

This is where things change, because he _does_ ask all of those things, but knowing what she knows, she detects an undertone to the conversation that she missed the first time around.

Staring at Agent Morris—whom she remembers fondly as Rick, one of the most inspiring commanding officers she ever had—over her tea, she realizes that he’s HYDRA. He’s HYDRA and he’s feeling her out to see if she’s a candidate for recruitment.

The words she’s about to speak, a practiced answer to his gentle question about loyalty, die on her lips. She sets her mug down, feeling suddenly unsteady.

“Jemma?” Morris asks, brow creasing in concern. “Is everything all right?”

She wants to say no— _no, it’s not all right, you were an inspiration to me and now I find out you were the_ enemy _the whole time_ —but she swallows the words back.

As she does so, something occurs to her. _Is_ HYDRA the enemy?

It seems obvious—of _course_ HYDRA is the enemy, what else could it be?—and yet…

She didn’t lose a single friend to HYDRA. Trip was lost to the Mist, to Cal and Raina’s scheming and his own heroic impulses. Skye and Fitz were both lost to the Inhumans.

In point of fact, the only person she lost to HYDRA was Ward, and that was in an entirely different way and by his own choosing, besides.

The Inhumans are her enemies. HYDRA is not.

Her mind reels.

HYDRA could help her achieve her aims. She wants to protect Fitz and Skye and Trip. To do that, she needs to stop the Inhuman threat. With the right words, the right discoveries, she can point HYDRA in their direction—end them before they end anyone else.

If she’s within HYDRA when SHIELD falls, she can position herself to prevent—or at the very least, change—the events in San Juan. As long as Skye doesn’t go down into the city and isn’t exposed to the Mist, she’ll be safe. And Trip will be safe with her: if she doesn’t go into the city, neither will he.

All of which is to say, the best thing she can do—for her friends and, therefore, herself—is get recruited.

How to make it happen?

He asked her where her loyalties lie, she recalls. It’s a familiar question, and she knows what answers HYDRA likes.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she says, smiling sheepishly. “It’s only—I know what I’m _supposed_ to say, but you asked for the truth, and…”

“The company line isn’t the truth?” he asks, relaxing. He gives her a conspiratorial smile. “Don’t worry about it, Jemma. SHIELD knows we’re not drones; we’re real human beings with real human feelings, and our loyalties vary accordingly. All I want is honesty. If SHIELD isn’t at the top of your list, I won’t hold it against you.”

The first time he asked her this question, she answered it very honestly. Her loyalties were with SHIELD, with her family, and with science. His follow-up question, which was what she saw as the aim of science, she answered with equal honesty: to better mankind and save lives.

She will not be dishonest with him, because she still can’t lie. She is, however, quite accomplished when it comes to selective truths.

“All right,” she says, and takes a deep breath, as though steeling herself. “If you want the truth…”

“I do,” he confirms.

“My loyalties are to science, first and foremost,” she says. “Then to Fitz and my parents. _Then_ to SHIELD.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Morris says. She thinks there’s something a touch eager in his reassuring smile, but it may simply be her imagination—an effect of what she knows about him. “You’ve got nothing to worry about there. Now, to follow that, what do you see as the goal—the point, if you will—of science?”

“Answering questions,” she says, not dishonestly.

His smile grows. “Good answer, Jemma. I couldn’t agree more.”

\---

It’s not as simple as a single conversation, of course. There are many conversations, with many people, with many selective truths.

Eventually, however, she achieves her goal, and in her second year at the Sandbox, she’s brought into HYDRA.

It changes surprisingly little.

Fitz, of course, is not HYDRA—will _never_ be HYDRA—which means that, as long as they’re partnered, she can’t work on projects HYDRA doesn’t want SHIELD to know about. However, their combined brilliance is such that her superiors are reluctant to separate them; for the moment—for the foreseeable future, as far as her superiors know—HYDRA and SHIELD are one, and depriving SHIELD of FitzSimmons would be foolish.

As such, any _under the table_ projects, so to speak, are restricted to those times that she and Fitz aren’t together—holidays, for the most part, although he goes home for six weeks at one point when his mum falls ill. The first time she lived it, Jemma spent those weeks consulting on a project attempting to develop a truth serum—a project that ultimately failed.

This time, she’s temporarily assigned to a HYDRA base in South America to investigate the potential use of snake venom in a certain hallucinogenic compound HYDRA is developing.

It’s wildly successful—and also surprisingly rewarding. That, she blames on the fact that it’s the first truly _new_ project she’s undertaken since coming back in time. The nostalgia of rerunning old experiments, resolving old problems, has long since faded; it’s so lovely to be challenged again.

After that, she takes every opportunity—every time she and Fitz are separated for more than a few hours—to undertake HYDRA’s work. It does excellent things for her standing within the organization.

(She’s aware, on some level, that she’s crossed a line somewhere. She’s far from what the old Jemma—the future Jemma, the past Jemma, the Jemma that hadn’t lost everything—would consider right. In fact, that Jemma would be horrified. _That_ Jemma was physically ill on more than one occasion from the things she saw and did whilst undercover.

But _that_ Jemma still had Fitz and Skye and Trip, and then she lost them. _This_ Jemma intends to prevent that.)

\---

The years pass, and she climbs HYDRA’s ranks. There is talk, eventually, of separating her from Fitz and retaining her brilliance for HYDRA’s cause alone, but she manages to avoid it. Mostly, it must be said, by flatly stating that she will refuse to work for them if they take Fitz away from her. Were she to do so, they would of course force her to continue through coercion, but that would greatly decrease her productivity.

It’s simple maths: better to have her part-time and enthusiastic than full-time and unwilling.

So her partnership remains intact, as well it should.

(It’s not that simple, really. She’s tempted to allow them to separate her from Fitz—as the years pass, the frustration of revisiting the same territory, of investigating questions whose answers she already knows, grows worse and worse, and HYDRA’s work, new and exciting and actually difficult, is very appealing indeed. Yet to leave Fitz’s side even for a few hours is still torture; the sight of his corpse, motionless and pale, haunts her nightmares, and permanent separation is a terrifying prospect.

In the end, the frustration of her repetitive work simply can’t outweigh her fear of losing Fitz.)

In the meantime, she gets a start on pointing HYDRA toward the Inhumans. She asks questions about the Gifteds, requests access to blood and tissue samples from Indexed assets, and manages, through casual conversation, to interest several colleagues in the question of where the assets’ powers come from.

HYDRA was always interested in powered people, of course, but she manages to direct more of their attention to the question of _why_ such people have powers, rather than simply _how_ to replicate the effects.

It will be years, she thinks, before the path she starts HYDRA on leads to Li Shi and Jiaying’s people. But they’ll get there eventually, and that’s what matters.

Let the Inhumans wage their war against humanity. They’ll find HYDRA much less reluctant to exterminate them than Coulson was.

They won’t take her friends from her. Not again.

\---

Something she doesn’t expect—though she really should have—is being assigned to the Centipede program.

She’s a little embarrassed, honestly, that it never occurred to her as a possibility. Of course her area of expertise, not to mention her well-documented interest in powered people, would make her a person of interest in Centipede’s attempts to recreate the super-soldier serum. The need for GH-325 might have been the element that brought them into the light, so to speak, but the program had been running for _years_ before that, and Jemma is well suited for it.

It’s less than a month after the Battle of New York that she’s brought in on the project. Fitz has taken leave to visit his mother, who—with SHIELD suddenly thrust into the public eye—has drawn some unfortunately accurate conclusions about his work. He’s been temporarily seconded to a base in Scotland, where he’ll be working with the Chitauri weapons in between attempts to calm his mother down.

He’s expected to be gone for two months, though she knows that it will grow to five. Jemma, as far as he knows, will be spending his time away happily dissecting Chitauri corpses and investigating the apparent hive mind that led to the entire invading force collapsing after Tony Stark shoved a nuclear missile through the portal to their home world.

It’s what she did the first time. This time, she’s sent to a HYDRA base in Northern California to meet John Garrett—and ( _not_ unexpectedly) Grant Ward.

She’s…conflicted about seeing him again. She hasn’t forgotten how much harm he did, how much she _hated_ him, but…

In the end, none of the damage he did was permanent. And she has perspective, now, on what it is to be drawn down an unexpected road—to be moved to take regrettable action out of loyalty to one’s loved ones.

With that in mind, and with years of distance from his crimes, she’s able to greet him with a smile.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she says, shaking his hand.

The grin he gives her in return is stunning—nothing at all like the small, restrained smiles he wore on the Bus. “You, too.”

That’s all the conversation they exchange; Ward hangs back during the meeting, a silent escort as Garrett takes Jemma on a tour of his facility and she’s filled in on the project and its goals.

“So,” Garrett says as the tour draws to a close. “Any questions?”

“Yes,” Jemma says. She looks around the lab they’re standing in, one of only three in the facility. (It was a very short tour.) “It’s a bit…small, isn’t it?” She raises her eyebrows at Garrett skeptically. “I would have expected HYDRA to dedicate more resources to this project, if it’s truly as promising as you claim.”

Garrett grins. “You _are_ a smart cookie, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she agrees. “I am. It’s why I’m in such demand.”

“You know, I like you, Simmons,” he decides.

“Most people do,” she says. (Perhaps her ongoing effort to find catharsis through being rude is getting out of hand; she makes a mental note to reconsider.) “However, you’ve yet to answer my question.”

“I haven’t,” he says. “And you’re right. My operation’s a lot bigger than this. The truth is, we’ve outsourced a lot of it.”

“Outsourced?”

“Most of our scientists—and test subjects—have no affiliation with HYDRA _or_ SHIELD. They think Centipede’s an independent project.” He shrugs. “None of those people know me—they think they’re being led by a psychic they call the Clairvoyant.”

“Interesting,” she says. “So this facility…?”

“HYDRA agents only,” he confirms. “Any other questions?”

“Yes, actually,” she says, and turns to Ward. “What’s your role in this, Agent Ward?”

He straightens from where he’s been leaning against a lab bench. “Excuse me?”

“Agent Garrett is obviously in charge,” she says. “But you’ve spent the last five minutes doing an excellent impersonation of a shadow—albeit a very attractive one. How are you involved in the project?”

“Why?” Ward asks, giving her another one of those gorgeous smiles. “Interested?”

“No,” she says. “Just curious.”

“Hmm.” He gives her a slow once-over, obviously unconvinced, then spreads his hands. “This is John’s baby, not mine. I’m just passing through.”

“Ah.”

“I could arrange for him to stick around,” Garrett offers. “If it would make your stay more pleasant.”

Looking at his grin, Jemma is unsettlingly reminded of her mother’s attempts to set her up with the sons of her old school friends.

“No, thank you,” she demurs.

“Not your type?” Garrett asks, frowning a little. Ward rolls his eyes.

There’s really no good way to respond to that. To say no would be an outright lie, and Ward would certainly pick up on it. But the truth—that she’s seen him in the wake of a bad break-up and would really rather not put herself at risk of that—is obviously not something she can share.

So she avoids the question. “There is one thing you can do to make my stay more pleasant.”

“Oh?” Garrett’s eyes sharpen. “And what’s that?”

“That was Monica Nozaki I saw in the other lab, wasn’t it?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says.

“I won’t work with her,” she says, flatly. “If you remove her from this facility, I’d be happy to accept the position. Otherwise, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

Garrett nods in understanding. “Still holding a grudge over her treatment of your pal Fitz?”

She’s not at all surprised that he knows about that; naturally he would have familiarized himself with her personnel file before requesting her, and she knows her feud with Nozaki is well-documented.

“I don’t like people who aren’t nice to Fitz,” she says, in both answer and warning.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Garrett looks to Ward. “Tell Nozaki to clear out, would you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Watching him leave, she notes a slight limp. He appears to have sustained some manner of injury to his left leg. For him to actually, visibly limp, it must be a severe one.

“So,” Garrett says, drawing her attention back. “Nozaki’ll be gone by lunchtime. You gonna stick around, see if you can’t solve our little combustion issue?”

Jemma looks around the lab, considering. She knows that without her intervention, this problem will be solved in a year and a half, when a pyrokinetic’s platelets are extracted and added to the serum. Perhaps she should let that stand, but…

It’s always struck her as a rather _inelegant_ solution. She can’t quite bring herself to pass up the chance to find a better one.

“Yes,” she decides. “I’d be happy to.”

\---

Ward sticks around anyway, which Jemma is of two minds about.

She doesn’t hate him anymore, but she hasn’t forgotten what he did. She hasn’t forgotten that the last time she saw him, she tried to kill him and he held a gun to her head. She _certainly_ hasn’t forgotten the hours of surgery it took to save Bobbi’s life.

But…so many people died. Will die. There were—will be—so many lives lost in the uprising and its immediate aftermath. She can’t save them all; she’d go mad trying. She can’t even _grieve_ them all.

She’s chosen which lives to save—which lives to focus on. Fitz. Skye. Trip. Them, she’ll save.

She can’t afford to care about any others. Not even Bobbi.

And, oddly, she finds Ward’s presence bizarrely comforting. Being around Fitz is a double-edged sword: he is familiar and beloved, but she’s never once, in the last five years, been able to erase the memory of sitting next to his corpse, pale and cold and lifeless. Leaving his side physically pains her, but that doesn’t mean that _not_ leaving is easy.

Ward, however…he’s familiar, though not beloved, and the last time she saw him, he was alive and well (despite her best efforts). And with the distance of years—and a new, worse enemy to hold a grudge against—it’s easier to remember the good times. They were friends, once, and even if it wasn’t real, some of her fondness for him has apparently lingered beneath all the hate and fear.

It’s easy, then, to slip into old habits.

She smiles at him when she passes him in the corridors, snaps at him when he startles her by lurking in doorways, and asks for his help when she’s impeded by the height of the shelves in the supply cabinet. In response, he smiles back, laughs at the fright he gives her, and makes sarcastic comments about fitting the closets with ladders even as he fetches what she needs.

All of these responses to her, however, are preceded by searching looks. She’s aware that her attitude towards him is in direct contrast to that of the other scientists at the facility, all of whom look right through him—they possess the disdain for operations agents common in those scientists who have never seen the field.

Since Jemma herself has never left the lab—at least as far as SHIELD and HYDRA know—it’s understandable that this difference would pique Ward’s interest. She’s a puzzle to him—a variable—and she knows how he feels about variables.

If she’s honest, she enjoys sparking this reaction in him; it’s nice to be the one not caught off-guard for once. At times, she deliberately provokes it.

How this turns into sleeping with him, however, she truly couldn’t say.

\---

Ward, as it happens, is an _incredibly_ talented lover.

He’s controlling and demanding and a tad rougher than she generally prefers in sexual partners, but even so, he’s unquestionably the best she’s ever had. She’s never come so hard—or so often—in her life. (In _either_ life.)

For this, she will forgive him much.

He seems to feel the same; though he rolls his eyes at her affection for post-sex cuddling, he allows it with good grace. In fact, after only a few weeks, it’s more difficult to get him to leave than to stay.

It’s for this reason that he’s still present in her bed the day, early in July, when her phone rings at two in the morning.

“Seriously?” he asks as she pulls away from him to reach for it. “You’re gonna answer that right now?”

“It’s Fitz’s ringtone,” she says, and he rolls his eyes. “Of course I’m going to answer it!”

“Of course you are,” he mutters, and she shushes him as she accepts the call.

“Fitz?” she asks. “Is everything all right?”

“’Course it’s all right,” he says, and a tension that she’d barely been aware of eases out of her shoulders. It’s so difficult to be away from him, even after all these years, and his voice always soothes away a little of her persistently lingering grief. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“It’s not like you to forget the time difference,” she says. “It’s two am here, you know; I might have been sleeping.”

“Or otherwise occupied,” Ward offers, making himself comfortable against her pillows.

“Who was that?” Fitz asks. “Why is—Simmons!” His voice takes on the disgusted tone he always adopts when presented with evidence that she’s sexually active. “Is that one of your _conquests_?”

“Yes,” she says, smiling to herself. It took years of trial and error, but she eventually managed to redirect his feelings for her elsewhere. Now they truly are more like siblings than anything else, and the sheer _offense_ he takes at her dating habits is hopelessly endearing. “Although, it could be argued that I’m one of his.”

Ward quirks an eyebrow at her, looking perfectly at home in her bed, and she nods, satisfied. She is almost certainly one of _his_ conquests, it’s a new and exciting experience.

“Ugh,” Fitz says. “Who is it? It’s not Robertson, is it? I know you were interested in his paper on sonoluminescence, but that’s no reason to—”

“It’s not Robertson,” she cuts in. Best to nip this in the bud; if she lets him, Fitz will spend all night listing every colleague of theirs he hates. “He’s not a scientist at all, in fact.”

“Oh, Simmons,” he sighs, disappointed. “Not another _specialist_.”

“Yes, another specialist,” she says. Ward frowns. “I’m allowed to have a type, aren’t I?”

“Not when it’s _that_ ,” he says, almost sulkily.

Specialists weren’t always her type, of course. The first time she lived these years, she dated other scientists almost exclusively, with only the odd Communications agent thrown in for variety. But so much of her time is spent revisiting old ground—reliving what she’s already experienced—and a change in sexual partners was the easiest to affect, back when she was nineteen and overwhelmed.

Additionally, she knows the fate of very few specialists. Having sex with a person is easier when their exact cause and date of death aren’t stamped on the inside of your eyelids, she’s found.

“Did you call solely to interrogate me about how I’m keeping myself entertained during our holiday?” she asks. “Because if so, I’m going to ring off and get back to my specialist.”

“No, of course it’s not why I called,” he says. “I wanted to ask—d’you mind if I extend my stay?”

Ah. Right on schedule.

“Of course not,” she says. “Is something wrong?”

“Just, uh.” He clears his throat. “My mum, she’s been very—clingy. You know how she gets. Thought I’d take some time, calm her down some.”

“That’s fine,” she says. “Take all the time you need.”

“Thanks.” He hesitates. “You know, you’re welcome to join me. These Chitauri weapons are something, and you know my mum would love to have you.”

“I do know,” she agrees. “However, as much as I appreciate the offer, I believe I’ll stay here. The things we’re learning about the hive mind—!” She gives a happy sigh. “It’s fascinating, Fitz, really. I can’t wait to tell you all about it.”

The enthusiasm is difficult to fake, and she sees Ward catch her hesitation. His eyes narrow, but he says nothing, which is just as well. It’s not as though she can tell him that exposure to a Chitauri virus more than a year from now will rather sour her against the species as a whole.

“Suit yourself,” Fitz says. “But let me know if you change your mind. The spare room is ready and waiting for you.”

“Thank you,” she says. “And, of course, should you decide that you’d like to visit _me_ , my bed is always open to you.”

Ward looks decidedly unamused, now; she imagines she’s going to pay for that remark. It’s an inside joke, not meant in a sexual way at all, but she’s intrigued at the possible retaliation he might enact, so she gives him a mocking smile instead of explaining.

Fitz laughs. “All right, Simmons. I’ll talk to you next week.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” she says—and she honestly will. Their daily emails and weekly phone calls are hardly enough contact to keep her restless worry for him contained, but anything more would be clingy and induce concern. “Have a nice day.”

“Kick the specialist out and get some sleep,” he advises in return, and she laughs as she hangs up.

She’s no sooner returned her phone to the bedside table than she finds herself rolled under Ward.

“So,” he says, frowning down at her. “Your bed is always open to him, huh?”

“Does that trouble you?” she asks. He’s pinning her wrists to the bed, grip just shy of painful, and she experiences a brief moment of disorientation as arousal winds through her veins. There was a time that to be restrained at all by Ward, let alone in such an intimate manner, would have been terrifying. Now, however, there’s not a drop of fear in her.

She didn’t realize, until this very moment, just how _fully_ she’s forgiven him for his crimes.

“What do you think?” he asks, and her disorientation passes.

“I think we’re engaging in very casual, albeit very excellent, sex,” she says. “And you have no say in whether I let anyone else into my bed.”

“Right and wrong,” he says, fingers flexing against her wrists. “This is very casual.” He shifts his weight over her, and her breath catches. “But I don’t share well. So as long as you’re with me, you’re _only_ with me.”

It’s not a sentiment that bothers her—really, there’s no one else at this facility she’s interested in seeing naked, let alone sleeping with—but it _is_ a bit high-handed of him. And honestly, she’s intrigued to see where he’ll take this if she disagrees.

So she does. “Is that so? I don’t think you’ve the right to dictate such terms to me.”

“No?” His grin is sharp, and it holds a promise that makes her mouth go dry. “We’ll see about that.”

In the end, she is very, very happy to agree to remain faithful to him for the duration of their fling.

(And that’s all it is. A fling.)

\---

One night a few weeks later, she’s nearly asleep when the soothing motion of his fingers through her hair suddenly stops.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

She opens her eyes and lifts her head to look at him, confused. “In your bed?”

The answer to _that_ seems obvious, but she can’t imagine what else he might be asking.

“No.” He smiles, a little. “I meant—you don’t really seem like the hailing HYDRA type.”

“Ah.” She rests her head on his shoulder once more, cuddling a little closer. “I’m not interested in world domination, it’s true.”

“Then what are you interested in?” he asks. “I’ve seen your file; no one expected you to turn so easily. Apparently it was quite the coup.”

“Right.” She trails her fingers along his abdomen, considering the best answer. He’ll know if she lies, of course; she’s much, much improved, but he’s still better. “I’m interested in powered people.”

“I’ve heard,” he says. “But why’d that lead you to HYDRA? SHIELD is interested in powered people, too.”

She sits up, as it’s likely she’ll fall asleep mid-sentence if she remains in such a comfortable position.

“It’s not, really,” she says. “Not properly.” She scowls at the blanket covering her knees. “SHIELD documents powered people, then monitors them or locks them up, depending on how they’ve used their powers. But it doesn’t _study_ them. Even the worst of the worst, locked away in the Fridge—SHIELD won’t even allow a simple lumbar puncture! It’s _infuriating_.”

“So it’s the lack of scientific ethics that drew you in,” Ward concludes.

That’s not precisely how she would word it, but it’s not inaccurate. “Yes.”

“Why are you so interested?” His gaze is assessing “What makes the Gifteds such a big deal?”

This is a difficult question with a very complicated answer, but luckily, he’s hardly the first to ask it; she has a completely truthful yet not at all honest response ready and waiting.

“I want to know how they work,” she says. “Where their powers come from. The Gifteds could hold so _many_ answers—they might be the next step in the evolutionary chain! And even if they’re not, through learning what gives them their powers, we can learn to recreate the effects. The sheer—”

“Okay,” Ward interrupts, raising his hands. “Sorry I asked.”

She smiles and lies back down, curling against him. “I’m sorry. I tend to get a bit passionate about this.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” he says.

“What about you?” she asks, as he wraps his arm around her shoulders. “What brought you to HYDRA?”

She knows the answer, of course, but not asking would seem strange.

(It’s actually incredibly frustrating, how many conversations she must have—how many questions she must ask—simply for the sake of appearances. She feels as though she spends all her time going over information she already knows, recreating experiments she’s already performed, and requesting permission to do things she’s already done. It’s utterly maddening.

But it’s worth it. To save Fitz and Skye and Trip—it’s worth all the aggravation in the world.)

“John,” he says simply. “Where he goes, I go.”

“I see.”

“You disapprove?” he asks, and she winces. She didn’t do a very good job of keeping her feelings about that out of her voice, she fears.

“Not at all,” she says. “Loyalty is an admirable trait.”

His fingers card through her hair. “You ever tried to get Fitz to turn?”

Of course he’s figured her out. Typical.

It’s possible that he’s beginning to know her entirely too well.

“He’s not suited for it,” she says sadly. “His morals will always outweigh his scientific curiosity.”

“Sorry to hear it.” He sounds it, too, which is…troubling. He presses a kiss to her hair, and that’s troubling, too. “Enough about HYDRA. Go to sleep.”

Falling asleep takes a while. It doesn’t usually—Ward is an excellent bedmate, in that his heartbeat is steady and his arms are warm and he all but exudes comfort (an interesting quality for a man of his skills and habits), and she’s found that sleeping is easier with him beside her—but tonight, her mind refuses to slow down.

All jokes aside, it’s possible she’s actually becoming attached to him, and that can only end badly.

\---

Surprisingly, though, it really doesn’t.

Her time at the Centipede facility draws to a close, and her relationship—if casual but very regular sex can be called such—with Ward ends with it, quickly and easily. They have one last night together, and then in the morning he kisses her goodbye, says, “It’s been fun,” and leaves without another word.

She’d be offended, but truly, it’s a relief.

Garrett’s goodbyes—which he arrives at the last moment to give—are somewhat longer.

“Sorry to see you go, Agent Simmons,” he says, frowning as though he’s honestly grieved.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t solve your problem,” she offers. She’s disappointed, in fact; she tried a great many solutions, and none of them worked. With more time, she’s certain she could come up with something better than _platelets_ , but…

Well, her time is up. There’s no use dwelling on it.

“Don’t worry about it,” Garrett dismisses. “Lucio and her crew tell me they’ve learned just as much from your failures as they would’ve success, so.” He shrugs, looking uncertain but unconcerned. “Whatever. And it’s better than most of my other scientists—they just kinda stare at the lab results and say _I don’t know_ a lot. Totally unhelpful.”

She’s…not truly certain what to say to that, so she simply smiles and changes the subject.

“In any case,” she says. “It was an interesting puzzle, and I enjoyed my time spent here. Thank you for the opportunity—and do let me know how you fix the problem, when you eventually do.”

She could just _give_ him the solution, of course, but using platelets wasn’t her idea, and it seems wrong to steal the credit from whoever _will_ eventually think of it.

“Will do,” he says. “And hey, thanks for taking such good care of my boy. I’ve never seen him make it all the way through medical leave without killing anyone before.”

His smile is suggestive, and she barely contains the urge to roll her eyes. Her dislike of Ward she has moved past; her dislike of Garrett, she suspects, will follow him to the grave.

It’s a comfort to know that his grave is not at all far from him.

(Less than two years. In a little over a year, she’ll meet Skye. She’s already preparing herself for it—steeling herself. Bursting into tears and hugging a complete stranger is troubling behavior; she can’t allow herself to react to meeting Skye again the way she’d truly like to. She fears it will take every second from now until their re-introduction to properly prepare for it, and even then, she might fail to contain herself.

But this is hardly the time for such thoughts.)

“Of course,” she says, and after a few more pleasantries, she takes her leave.

\---

In all of the years since her fateful decision to go into the field, Jemma has never once wondered what first sparked the desire. She had a whole list of reasons for wanting to experience field work—all of which she had to share multiple times in multiple ways to convince Fitz that it was a good idea—and, had she ever pondered it, she undoubtedly would have attributed the impulse to one of them.

She’s surprised to realize, halfway through a conversation with Commander Hill, that she’s manipulated into it.

It makes sense, of course—after all, as she knows now, the whole point of having a biochemist and engineer on the team was to monitor and possibly treat Coulson, in case his TAHITI programming broke down. Of course SHIELD, having invested such time and energy into Coulson, would want the best standing by in case of disaster, and whatever else they might be, Jemma and Fitz are most certainly the best.

“Something wrong, Simmons?” Hill asks, looking up from her notes. She’s doing an evaluation on Jemma’s productivity—something that happens two or three times a year and which sparked no suspicion in Jemma the first time around.

But that off-hand comment Hill just made about field applicability, one of several so far, was just a _touch_ too casual. Hill is attempting to plant the idea that she needs field experience in her head, Jemma’s certain of it.

It’s just as well that this serves her own purposes well, otherwise Jemma would be very annoyed indeed.

As it is, she simply smiles. “Not at all, Commander. Now, I don’t know whether Fitz discussed his unfortunately named gun with you—”

“He did,” Hill confirms, grimacing. “The night-night gun? Really?”

“I’ve tried to talk him out of it,” she says. “I’m afraid he won’t be budged.”

“You don’t get veto power?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Jemma says. “The one who comes up with the idea first gets naming privileges, and creating a gun designed specifically for use with my dendrotoxin formula was _his_ idea.”

“Great,” Hill sighs. “Do you have _any_ idea what kind of looks we’re gonna get if we hand our specialists a ‘night-night’ _anything_?”

“I imagine they’ll be unamused?” Jemma says, doing her best to make it sound uncertain. “I’ve never spent much time around specialists.”

Other than sexually, which she assumes Hill knows—SHIELD has no respect at all for its agents’ privacy—but she feels that to clarify would be tactless.

“You should give it a try sometime,” Hill says. “They’re a fun crowd.”

That, by Jemma’s count, is the sixth comment. She puts a thoughtful look on her face as she turns back to her presentation, and Hill drops the subject.

\---

Actually going _into_ the field takes something of a different route, this time. The first thing she does is report her suspicions to her superiors.

“Hill _wants_ you in the field?” Rick—who has remained her HYDRA contact—asks skeptically. “Why?”

“I couldn’t possibly guess,” she lies. “And I’m not certain of it, really. It’s merely the impression I got, that she was a bit too casual with her words regarding my lack of field experience.  I asked Fitz, and apparently she made several similar comments to him.”

“Hmm.” Rick drums his pen against his desk. “I may need to pass this up the chain. Do nothing, for now.”

“Yes, sir."

\---

A week later, she’s ordered to convince Fitz to put in a request for field work. Having lived this once, it’s much easier for her to talk him into it, as she already knows which arguments will fail. And once she succeeds, it’s only another month before they’re assigned to Coulson’s team and given their field assessments. Which they fail, as expected.

What she _doesn’t_ expect—but really should have—is to be called into a meeting with Garrett and Ward not two days later.

She leaves the meeting feeling both absurdly reassured and troubled by said reassurance. The assignment to Coulson’s team is what she’s been waiting for—it’s what started it all, put her on the path that eventually led her back in time. She’s spent more than six years preparing for it.

In a matter of weeks, she’ll be meeting Skye.  A few months after that, she’ll meet Trip. A few months after _that_ , SHIELD will fall. She has to be ready, be on her guard, and nothing can go wrong.

She can’t lose them again.

There’s a lot at stake, and her involvement with HYDRA—with Centipede—puts so much at risk.

Confirmation that she and Ward will be collaborating, will be working together to further Garrett’s goals, should therefore not be reassuring. In fact, it should be worrying. She should have attempted to weasel her way out of it, not cheerfully agreed.

It appears that sometime during their liaison last year, she fell back into the habit of trusting him.

She only hopes it won’t get anyone killed.

(Again.)


End file.
